Interoperability and IoT: Standardization & Open API Key

Internet is considered as one of the most important and powerful creations in all of human history. Internet of Things (IoT), also known as Web of Things or Internet of Objects, represents the next wave of evolution that is promising to connect every object on earth; living as well as non-living. With this kind of a connectivity established, there is a possibility of genera &ing and transmitting real-time data from all kind of objects -- homogeneous as well as heterogeneous, conveying all kind of statuses depending on the object to which this data is attributed to.
The data that is generated will pose a huge challenge, in terms of its assimilation and the derivation of the right context and meaning, by the receiving entities. There is, thus, a huge possibility of fragmentation in terms of technologies used to process this data. Moreover, numerous services and applications are bound to be developed to control and operate the connected things/objects. Hence, there is a strong need for a generic framework, which removes the fragmentation in technologies and provides for interoperability and ubiquitous access.

Read more: http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/interoperability-issues-in-iot-usecases#ixzz30Cc74xKJ

Internet of Things: A Myriad of Possibilities

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the next wave of technology evolution that promises to connect every object on earth -- living as well as non-living. IoT conceptualizes the vision of a future internet, where the physical objects from a car to a dish-washer, a chair to light bulb, are all connected and would take an active part in the internet, exchanging information about themselves, as well as about their surroundings. This will give immediate access to information about the physical world and the objects, leading to innovative services and solutions and leading to an increase in efficiency and productivity. The opportunities offered are huge and a few scenarios, and usecases, that we can foresee in such an interconnected world are noted.

Read more: http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/internet-of-things-myriad-of-possibilities#ixzz2zjyGdW65

The Commoditization of the Smartphone

Smartphones have seen a tremendous growth on their popularity ever since the introduction of Apple’s iPhone in T-Mobile’s network sometime back in 2007. The release of Google’s Android also did influence this growth in a very positive way. Android provided an open source & its associated community and also a readily available platform which paved the way for new entrants to the Smartphone OEM list.
Android, being an open source, provided the advantages of a very short development time and a quicker time-to-market advantage and these factors mainly attracted the new entrants into the Smartphone OEM business. Currently, if we look at the market share for the Smartphones held by the local OEMs, in the Chinese and Indian markets, we see these local players gradually increasing their share over the last couple of years.

Read more: http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/commoditization-of-smartphone#ixzz2zjxvp4NR

Will Monetization Match Mobile Internet's Growth?

The last couple of decades has seen a great push towards the democratization of the internet and thereby the availability of the online information to all. There were great strides taken towards an open gardens approach and the closed wall approach was slowly but surely crumbling.
The mobile internet traffic as well has seen a tremendous growth curve over the period of last 5 years. With the launch of iPhone in T-Mobile’s stores in 2007, the Smartphone market has almost grown exponentially. The growth, which was for the initial couple of years concentrated in the US and European markets, has gradually spread across to the other countries.

Read more: http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/will-mobile-monetization-match-the-growth-of-mobile-internet#ixzz2zjxWJN4U

Skype and the future of Voice Calling on Windows Phone

The hottest news item doing the rounds for the past couple of weeks has been the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft. There have been quite a few suitors and after a lot of speculations, Skype has finally a new home in Microsoft.

Most of the concerns raised by the users about this acquisition have been about what Microsoft is going to do with Skype in future. Skype has, for long, embodied the ethos of the free communication by allowing free voice and video calls, which has benefitted quite a few small-medium sized business setups as well. The future of Skype at the hands of Microsoft is indeed a story worth following over the next few months to come. Another concern has been the multi-platform support of Skype in the coming days to come. Skype has for long been providing regular updates for the Windows, MAC and the Linux platforms. Windows has been the preferred platform to receive the latest updates which would then be provide to the MAC and the Linux platforms. It would be interesting to see whether we would see as active a support as we were used to for the MAC and Linux platforms in the days to come.

Google has been one of the suitors vying for Skype even though it already had Google voice. Facebook was also one of the suitors but was not considered as a serious buyer. Facebook would have indeed benefitted with an integrated Voice and Video service to its more than 600 million users. A conventional approach to provide such an integrated service to such an overwhelming number of users would have incurred a huge cost and an overhead of operating infrastructure.

Microsoft has its own reasons in aggressively pursuing Skype. Starting from the Gingerbread versions of Android, Google has been supporting SIP enabled Voice and Video telephony and moreover, Google has Google Voice at its disposal which can be brought over to the Mobile OS space as well. Apple has Facetime. Microsoft desperately wanted Skype to bridge this gap in its Mobile OS Windows Phone 7. We could also see Microsoft going the Android way and announcing a minimum set of hardware specifications for the Windows Phone 7 devices. We could see the front facing cameras becoming a norm in the coming future for the Smart phones. Windows Phone 7 does definitely seem to hold the potential of pole vaulting the MS mobile OS towards the top of the heap and this deal will definitely give a firm push towards that direction.

Skype deal will also give Microsoft a more direct tie-in to the operator for both the Packet switched voice and video calls. There were early indications already last year with the operators approaching Skype for the Voice calls and we could see more of such deals with the widespread adoption of LTE in the coming future. This would definitely be a revenue generator as well as value add services for both the company as well as the operator. There can also be a flip side with Microsoft beginning to eliminate support for the other mobile platforms and target the future features and value-add services exclusively only for the Windows Phone platform.

Nevertheless, the future of Skype with Microsoft is worth following!

Rambling about Apple's iPad

The much anticipated tablet PC from Apple is released. Apple has decided to name it as iPad, that sounds very similar to a feminine hygiene product. Many are anticipating an iTampon to be released next from Apple (HolyKaw) :)

Jokes aside, the IPad definitely does seem to mark the beginning of the end of the notebooks. The Specs (Ipad Specs) seem very much alright until you glance towards the connectivity section. The basic model has a Wifi. What myself, & i believe everyone else, was waiting for was a 3G support in the basic version. Anyways, there is a Basic + 3G model.

One of the very interesting feature in the iPad is the iBooks App. This will definitely provide a stiff competition to the Amazon's Kindle. Personally having used the Kindle, i find the Book reader as a very useful & innovative idea from Amazon. There is also an EBook reader that is supposed to be launched In february in India (Infibeam's Pi). This is a product made by an Indian Company. Hope to see few more such innovations from the Indian Companies.

The pricing seems to be right. There are a hordes of bloggers who were predicting a pricing in the range >$1000 till yesterday. There was some news of the Apple shares rising by almost 4% once the price was announced.

Will it replace the notebooks? May not entirely. It all depends on the type of Apps, especially the Office Suites & productivity Apps that Apple can bring to the IPad so as to lure the executives. Only time will tell. Will it replace my Personal laptop? Not in near future. I am more than happy with my HP pavilion! However, i would definitely love to have an iPad just to flaunt it in front my friends :)